Bay Model Visitor Center

Huge and fascinating working exhibit about water/​tidal flow in the bay area and its economic and social importance.
If i didnt have to chase the little ones, i’d spend a couple hours reading and listening to everything.
Cant believe its completely free! No parking fee either.

The Bay model is quite amazing. It is really big and takes quite a while to see everything. The tide goes in and out every 15 minutes so you can see the pattern of the water. It is free and a great place to spend time if you are out in Sausalito.
Great place to take kids and adults too. It gives a great perspective on how big our delta, and several bays connect in our area.

It’s free, it’s educational and it’s pretty neat. I always seem to make it 20 minutes before close and so don’t get to spend as much time as I would like. The hours on the website are not always correct so call ahead to double check.

The Bay Model Visitor Center offers exceptional value. In that, you get to see lots of great things at the cost of nothing. The bottom floor features a huge model with much of Northern California, while the top floor extensively puts the lower floor in context by discussing the science of it all. This museum is in a secluded part of the pier, so use caution, especially if walking here.
This museum has been my calling several times. Not all of it is extraordinary, but it is usually very interesting. Captions constantly explain things along with movies for clarity. It used to look like Detroit at parts, but they seemed to have made the museum better since my previous visit. Indeed, this is an intricate experience where you will go right up to different objects almost as if you were on one of the better motion picture sets.
Going to the top and looking over it all made me feel as if I were myself an engineer. Take your time and you will be happy that you did. The volunteer at the front was very helpful in directing me back to San Francisco. Remember the numerical adress and the street, because this is a bit of a walk from downtown Sausalito.
Bay Model Visitor Center is a worthwhile endeavor.

What do you do with a gigantic replica of the bay area when you’re done using it? Answer: turn it into a museum.
The Bay Model is a working hydraulic scale model of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-​San Joaquin River Delta System. While the Bay Model is still operational, it is no longer used for scientific research but is instead open to the public alongside educational exhibits about Bay hydrology.
The model is located in the Bay Model Visitor Center at 2100 Bridgeway Blvd. in Sausalito, California.
The bay model museum is a cool way to spend an afternoon if you’re in the area.
And it’s free… and in someways you get what you pay for because it’s fairly run down, but still worth checking out.
I definitely recommend getting a tour. It’s become somewhat of a Marin tourist attraction and a reminder to many about abhorrent government planning ideas. The surrounding area outside the museum by the Bay is very cool as well. I recommend doing a stroll down the Sausalito boardwalk to check out the different marinas and beaches and into Sausalito itself.
I went there with my two children and it was fun for about a half an hour or so. Next time, if I do return, I’d like to get a guided tour because just walking around the model wasn’t that interesting, especially always wondering where my kids were running around.

I am absolutely a fan of the Bay Model Visitor Center. I have sent tens of families there over the last few years and they all come back happy and smiling. Not only is it a great *gasp* educational place for kids, it actually is fascinating and amazing to me as a «grown» adult. They have lots of little stations to stop and learn about how the different tides and canals work, plus the giant display of bodies of waters show real currents and water depths. As an added bonus they have a side room full of displayed items about WWII

It’s huge. We take all our visitors to it, provided it’s open. Plus, it’s free!

Of course it’s five stars. It’s amazing and free. Insightful, nerdy wonderfulness awaits you the next time you’re in Sausalito, trying to avoid the crowds. You are guaranteed to learn something, but if you’re not in the mood for educational musuem-​style displays, just fast forward to the part where you’re standing in a massive wooden warehouse with a funky-​yet-​super practical functional model of the entire Bay Area’s waterways complete with active tides. The endless maze of the Delta’s complexity is particularly eye-​opening, and the whole thing feels like a delightfully giant swimming pool art project with an engineer’s precision.

Always worth a visit with kids when going to Sausalito. I combined this visit with a Call of the Sea sail charter. The docent we had, Andre, was spectacular, he was patient with a large group of kids and kept them involved.

Definitely a good place to take visitors (and to visit yourself if you are local) to understand more about how the Bay works. When you walk in, it’s larger than you’d expect from outside. Since I’m new to the Bay Area, this helped me to get a better idea of the geography and it’s neat to see it visually in a scaled down (but accurately scaled) version. The fact that the water levels are also accurately simulated is also really cool. There’s an introductory video that you watch first and then you can explore on your own by wandering through the model and reading the signs. It’s really great that this place is free and open to the public!

Very fun. More inside than you think. Video wasn’t that good but the model is so big. You can walk around the Bay Area and see city names. A few landmarks and all the after pathways. Makes you realize how big the bay really is. Great for kids and dates (if you like nerdy things). Definitely go. It takes about an hour and it’s Free.99!

Went on the 4^th of July weekend since we had some time to kill. It was empty, there were two other people. It is one of those things which must have been cool in its time but now it feels a little old. It is an impressive museum given the sheer size of the model and helps you appreciate the age of computer based simulations that we live in.

Elinor A.‘s right on the mark. Before computers could do the job, the Bay Model was used by government engineers to simulate tides and currents in the Bay, as well as water flows in the Delta region. Today, it remains a great educational tool for all ages, and there are many exhibits pertaining to water use, local ecosystems, and area geography. Definitely a good way to familiarize yourself with the Bay Area and understand more about its fragile ecology.

We were only driving through the area, and didn’t have plans to visit here (let alone know it existed). We didn’t have anything planned for the afternoon, so we decided to go inside and check out the Bay Model!
We were pleasantly surprised with the fact that entry into the Bay Model is free, and the lovely lady at the desk was extraordinarily friendly and helpful in explaining how the organization of the center worked. We were given informative pamphlets and started our walk around the exhibit.
There is a short video before you enter the main room where the model sits that provides simple, but helpful information for people of all ages to better understand the purpose and benefit that the Bay Model has. Don’t miss it!
The model itself is breathtaking, really. IT IS HUGE! I had never imagined it would be so detailed and precise and just… BIG! It takes up the entire floor of the building. The history of the Bay Model will leave all visitors feeling like they really learned some cool information about the Bay Area. This is just a great spot for families, school classes, and people of all ages and backgrounds to come and explore/​study.

Went here for a field trip with my geography class. To begin with, the view from the outside is amazing. You can see across the water to Tiburon (the people who work here don’t know how lucky they are).
If you’re interested to learn about the San Francisco Bay Area, and the bay itself, you have to stop by here at least once. They have a model of the whole Bay Area itself along with charts, pamphlets, and videos, among other things, to allow you to learn about the history of the Bay.
Do yourself a favor, take yourself, your significant other (if you have one), your kids (if you have any), and some friends (if you have any), and stop by here. You won’t regret it.
5 stars all the way

This is a pretty cool place! I’ve always wanted to come here since I saw it on Mythbusters…
It’s a little run down because it’s run by a governmental agency, but it’s still neat to see how huge this place is and to learn its history.

Being new to the Bay Area, this was a handy way for me to learn about the local climate and ecology. The Center’s educational movie got me up to speed on the last 30,000 years in about eight minutes. I didn’t realize how much the Gold Rush miners remade the landscape – and not in a good way – with destructive hydraulic mining methods.
The big show is the huge working model of the Bay, which scientists used before computer models could do everything better. There was a ‘50s/‘60s vibe to it, which makes sense given it was built then. I can imagine Mad Men-​era scientists having wild parties in there, dispensing cigarette butts and wildly inaccurate predictions about climate change.
It was pleasant to stroll around on a weekend, when it wasn’t too crowded, and a good introduction to the area.

What a pleasant surprise! I didn’t know this even existed.
I was having brunch with a couple of friends at Le Garage after a nice long bike ride and as we were about to head out, we saw signs for the Bay Model Visitor Center. I would have to say that it’s pretty cool and once you really read up on what they do at this place, it’s kinda cool finding out how intricate this model actually is. It may look like a place for kids to run around during a school field trip but this place actually conducts research for the benefit of the bay.
I want to come back when I have more time to walk around. Since I was cycling, it was kinda hard walking around in cycling shoes with pedal cleats.

I’m a big fan of the Bay Model. I brought my kid here on a rainy day, and we had a blast. My daughter was a little young to really understand what this place is about, but she had a great time running around and looking at everything. I really got into it, growing up here means your life revolves around the Bay– literally. Although some of the displays and the condition of the model can be a bit run down, it is a government run entity, and it’s free to get in so I can’t really complain. The Army Corps Rangers are very well informed and will talk your ear off about how the model works, if you geek out on it like I do.
The day we went, a big chunk of renovations had been completed, so they had a huge spread of lunch and drinks laid out as a celebration. So not only did we have a good time, but we got fed for free. And I had a couple of glasses of free wine as well, which smoothed out the rest of the toddler management day. Now that’s how I like my taxes to be spent!
Thanks for a great time, Army Corps of Engineers! Keep up the good work!

Winner of the most random local spot that I never knew anything about until I stumbled upon it recently last weekend!
Nestled behind Mollie Stones in Sausalito is an interesting piece of history for Marin and the San Francisco Bay Area. Back in the 1950’s, the US Army Corps of Engineers constructed this 2 acre model of the San Francisco Bay Area to see what effects we have on it as a whole. For example… adding another runway to SFO (and thus filling in a significant portion of the SF bay as a result)…what effect would that have?
The Bay Model answered that question for several decades, although now I am sure that computers do that just as easily… which is why they have opened this exhibit to the public.
Make sure you check out their 10 minute video in the small screening room before entering the HUGE room where the model is in back. Recently I heard that the Bay Model will be receiving $ 8.8 million in Federal stimulus funds, which should hopefully serve the project well. My best suggestion for the money would be to pay some artists to construct small models of each of the different areas of the San Francisco Bay to make the exhibit more interesting.
It is good to call ahead of time or look at their website for their hours, as they change during the Summer or Winter seasons. Admission and parking is free!
As for the gift shop, the ladies behind the counter were boring and more interested in complaining about how the fax machine didn’t work. The fact that I asked them questions about the exhibit only warranted complaining about how little they were paid; Grandma Thelma was obviously more interested in returning to her crappy romance novel than she was to talk about the interesting exhibit she was hosting.
Stimulus dollars desperately needed to pay for a more enthusiastic staff. Oh, and a fax machine, I guess?

I used to come here as a kid and now coming here as an adult this is still an amazing site to see. The entire Bay area waterways laid out to scale — BIG scale!
Also, this is a great rest stop on a Saturday when riding your bike from Pier 39 across the GG Bridge to Tiburon. Stretch your legs have a snack, use the bathroom.